La Cantuta Massacre

The La Cantuta massacre, in which a university professor and nine students from Lima's La Cantuta University were abducted by a military death squad, took place in Peru on 18 July 1992 during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori. The incident occurred two days after the Shining Path's Tarata bombing left over 40 dead in Lima Province.

The incident was among the crimes noted in the conviction of Fujimori, on April 7, 2009, on charges of human rights abuses.

The Enrique Guzmán y Valle National Education University (Universidad Nacional de Educación Enrique Guzmán y Valle, or "UNE"; better known as "La Cantuta", from the neighbourhood in which it stands) was founded as a teacher-training college in 1822, granted its university charter in 1965, closed down by the military government in 1977, and reopened in 1980.

Because of its remote location, far away from the centre of Lima, the fact that most of its students hailed from the impoverished interior of the country, and that most of them intended to enter the highly politicised teaching profession, La Cantuta gained a reputation as hotbed of radical politics as early as the late 1950s and early 1960s. A series of student-led protest actions on the campus — including the blocking of the railway line linking Lima with the interior of the country — that led to the suspension of its activities in 1977.

With the return of democratic rule in 1980, President Belaúnde reopened the university. The radical elements among the students and lecturers were quick to return, and by the mid-1980s the country's two main insurgent groups, Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), had a strong presence on campus. By the early 1990s, due to a strategic withdrawal by MRTA and the fragmentation of the other left-wing groups on campus, legal and illegal alike, Sendero Luminoso had the upper hand. This was in spite of operations such as that of 13 February 1987, when 4000 police officers conducted night-time raids at the dormitories of three state universities (including La Cantuta); 20 April 1989, when a joint force of police and army descended on La Cantuta University and San Marcos National University and arrested over 500 students on charges of subversion; or 22 May 1991, when, in response to a hostage crisis and rumors of an explosive device squirreled away on campus, Fujimori sent the army in to restore order at La Cantuta. Graffiti alluding to Sendero Luminoso and its leader, Abimael Guzmán, were painted over with patriotic slogans; students went about their business only after passing checkpoints and under close supervision from the armed forces; and the campus remained under military control for several years.

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